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Thursday, June 30, 2016

I'm joining the party a day late, but it's a good one! STAMPlorations is celebrating Birthday #3 and hip hip hooray, there's a new product line coming to the store. DIES!!! We'll be showcasing them on days 5-7 so just keep watching ;)

In celebration of Birthday #3 as well as the arrival of owner Shery R.'s adorable little Kat last fall, this is the stamp set released for the party.

I couldn't resist using delightful little Kat with her closed eyes to make a dreamy birthday card. Meet wafting Kathryn!

Thought the sentiment lent itself well to becoming a balloon string! Love the oversize balloon in this set so I heat embossed it white and watercolored it with Gansai Tambi. I chose a bold, primary color scheme (reminiscent of those large punching balloons that Kmart and the like had when I was a kid - anyone remember those?) and went pretty heavy on the pigment which leaves some shine when dry.

So now it's your turn. There's a linky party with prizes over on the blog, as well as a whole lotta inspiration from the DT. There will be random prizes for comments along the way too. Help us celebrate won't you?

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

I've had such fun with Anna K.'s CASometry 2 challengeto use one stamp set to make five different cards. What a great idea and what fun it's been to see how creative card designers are. I'm bringing you a review of my previous cards as well as #5.

For #5 we were to CASE a card from the CASometry 2 Pinterest board where this colorful beauty caught my eye.

I set off with my Essentials by EllenUp the Happy set and this is what evolved.

Pretty easy actually. I used Strathmore Bristol smooth paper and stamped the butterflies with Distress inks. Then I colored them a little in the center with Zig Clean Color Brush markers. TIP: If you're interested I've a list at the bottom of this post telling you which inks match which markers. Went over them with a wet brush and used some of the color picked up on one butterfly (eg. the purple one) to add some highlights to another one (eg. the light blue one). Just made sure to clean my brush after that so as not to end up with mud.

I die cut the cardbase and the stamped panel with STAMPlorations Crazy Double Stitch Rectangle dies. Added craft foam behind the panel for some dimension. I was itching to add black splatters. And a black sentiment too. But I forced myself to keep it light and airy, so heat embossed the fun sentiment yellow on vellum. This way it can't steal the show from the rabble!

True confessions? This was actually the card I was making for my last Spotlight post. But it went south. So I created a different card. But then I decided to salvage (or try to) this one. My problems began when stamping the "frame". First off, my first stamping wasn't perfect. Not owning a MISTI, I had to eyeball it to stamp a second time. And it was slightly off. OK, I thought, it's sketchy anyway. I'll just stamp each segment twice.

Next problemo. I'd measured the circle size so that three stampings would complete it, but alas, it didn't. (I hadn't been careful enough about hitting my penciled circle each time!!) So I had to do some selective inking of one curve and stamp it in the missing space!

And then, since I'd chosen a border stamp that was "open" - the 3rd in the set above (compared to the "closed" one I used here , the 6th in the set above) - I thought the design looked funny with the off-the-edge suitcases. Hmm.

So I sketched over my penciled circle with a Sharpie to "close" it and give the suitcases an edge to go over! And watercolored the suitcases with my Gansai Tambi. And did a pale blue sky wash inside the circle. I do really like the primary colors and the finish on the suitcases. They look nice and leathery.

I actually even forgot to stamp the third segment of my frame a second time! Geez, Maria. But the washi strip is pretty cool, eh? From my spending spree at Tiger on our Hamburg trip.

So, as opposed to inspiration, I hope you've gotten a kick out of my "how not to do its"! Thanks for stopping by today.

A closeup so maybe you can catch the shimmer of the Perfect Pearls. I love that stuff.

So although I didn't actually use stamps, there's lotsa ink on my card as well as:
TEXTURE - die cut and shimmery surface
DIMENSION - die cut and the depth of the various inked layers
TECHNIQUE - die cutting and stencilling

Not sure this fits the bill due to that die cut sentiment, but I'm joining the "Stencil" fun over at One Layer Simplicity. Thanks for visiting!

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

More inspiration coming at you today, as well as a sneak peek of a new stamp coming your way for STAMPlorations' 3rd Birthday which is fast approaching!

I was in the "create" mode for the Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop when two stamp sets met on my workspace and this card happened. (I may or may not have been in a weird mood that day ;)

Used the little chica from the new set along with Sketchy Coffee Cups. Doctored the sentiment (also from the new set) to make it fit my design. Added a wavy line from Mixed Media Elements to catch my sentiment and keep it from falling off the card ;)

Coloring. My nemesis. I Copic colored the mugs perfectly - in my mind's eye!
Figured I better keep it real and just went for striped tights (LOVE that detail!) and an ombre look to chica's dress. Added Wink of Stella to all the mugs. Cuz I can do that ;) And washi and voila! The sparkly mugs are kinda fun IRL.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Now, welcome to my world where the Friyay part is true but summer disappeared before it had arrived and I'm favoring tea over coffee today. Wanna see my card?

This is actually an homage to my Mom's iced tea (yeah, I should have die cut "iced" but it would have been too big!). She brewed it from Red Rose black tea and always added a shot of orange juice. So iced tea in our house was never totally clear. But oh so yummy. And that's how I make mine. The lemon sticker on my card was just for fun ;)

It's actually an homage to my relatives in Fayetteville, NC too. Cuz when they ask you if you want some tea - they mean iced tea and it sounds like "I stay" when they say it ;) Thus my poetic license for my sentiment.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Somewhat unconventional perhaps, but this is a guy card. Cuz guys have the stupidest humor. Don't tell them I said that OK?

Pretty simple. I heat embossed Hero Arts Life of the Party dots BG onto my cardbase. Inked Neenah white CS with a selection of rainbow colors of Distress Inks and die cut letters with Papertrey Block Alpha. Adhered them along the corner of a piece of CS then trimmed it to create the diagonal panel. Added a purple gem as the dot to the question mark and voila!

I enjoyed CASEing Shelly K.'s card for the June CASEplorations so much, (and DD needed thank you cards for all her birthday gifts) that I created a whole set of the same design. I just varied the colors.

These are the stamp sets I used along with some heat embossing and watercolor washing:

Here's a closeup. See that golden goodness? Have a look at CASEplorations this month and give Shelly's card a CASE! Watch for my Spotlight post this evening over at STAMPlorations and I'll share some tips for how I stretched my border stamps to create this frame.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Time for card number four made with the Up the Happy set from Essentials by Ellen. This is for a challenge over at Anna K.'s blog, called CASometry. What a fabulous idea she came up with for this challenge - use one stamp set to make five cards. I'm nowhere near running out of ideas yet. We all need to do this with many sets that sit unloved in our craft rooms...

Had some fun with the technique of stamping with watercolors. After stamping my sentiment I brushed some watercolors onto the balloon stamp (TIP: Use the reverse of the outline stamp in order to get a solid image. If necessary, place a piece of foam adhesive on your acrylic block inside the outline to give more support when you are stamping the image.) and stamped away. Started with the yellow up top and moved down with reds, oranges and finally two purple balloons.

I sketched a couple strings and highlights a la Dawn E. of WPlus9. Doesn't that add a nice artsy touch? Well except for that one kinda straight line on the orange balloon. Got a little carried away with my "artsy fartsy-ness"!

I thought about adding enamel dots like Dawn did. Or a few white sequins. But in the end I settled for a few spritzers of Perfect Pearl water mix and love the result. Can you see those little glimmer particles all over, even on the sentiment? Love that stuff.

Friday, June 10, 2016

Made a set of wine bottle tags for a friend who lives in our wine town. How often do we all take a bottle of wine with us when we're invited somewhere? It's pretty standard in these parts. I'm so glad I invested in the PTI Wine Bottle Tag die ;)

I chose a color palette of Pumice Stone, Dried Marigold, Bundled Sage and Scattered Straw thinking they go well with the colors of wine bottles around here - green, brown and clear with a green tint. I used - from left to right - MFT Fleur de Lis, Prima Flourish, STAMPlorations Leaf Prints and STAMPlorations Flower Burst stencils. The die cuts are from PTI Uncorked and Uncorked Words. They live at my house too ;)

I was inspired to give two techniques a try. First was from the queen of techniques, Jennifer M. It's called "faux dimension with stencils". SUCH fun and amazing results. Here's a great video.

And since I was using Papertrey product, I decided to work in MIM #252 where it's about adding shadowing to a die cut sentiment with Copics. I added a drop shadow to all of mine with a C3 gray. See it here? TIP: Choose a larger sized sentiment to make your drop shadowing easier!

When all was dry, I removed the mask and heat embossed the sentiment (the inside reads HB2U from the same ME set). Finished it off with some spritzers of Perfect Pearls/water mixture. Can't get enough of that stuff. It gives the final project such a great finish!

Thanks for looking. I'm sharing my card at:
SSS Wednesday Challenge - Mask it
Cards and More - Special Occasions
Task for Two Tuesday who's turning "1" - Party (this card is accompanying the carrot cake DD is making the birthday boy for his party)
Stempelkueche - Cards for Little Ones

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Welcome to the first June inspiration post from the STAMPlorations girls. I'm sharing a card I made a bit ago, lets call it the boy cousin of this card.

A squirt of blue Kesi Pschhiitt opaque spray ink onto my cardbase. A snippet cut with Little B Block Out. A red stamped then clear embossed STAMPlorations Sketched:Birthday cake and voila! I think this would do well for a masculine birthday card. Maybe for one in July now that I notice my color choices ;)

Please take a look at what the other girls created over at the blog. If you leave a comment there, you may win a GC!